582. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre

Genre: Espionage, Spy
Rating: 4. Worth a read
Read before: New read
Written: 1900s
Edition: Sceptre 1999

Overview:
Alec Leamas, a British secret agent, goes on one last assignment before coming in from the cold; he becomes a double agent dedicated to bringing down the head of the Communist intelligence agency in East Germany. All goes according to plan until Leamas finds himself before a secret tribunal and he realises things are not as they seem.

First chapter:
Using the approach of extracting questions from this book is too formulaic and predictable ... there's so much more to this book than what's being set up in the first chapter. What really impressed me instead was the initial warning about cheating and trust:
• Leamas said: "You teach them [agents] to cheat, to cover their tracks, and they cheat you as well." (p16)
• "... and Leamas swore, not for the first time, never to trust an agent again." (p16)

Thoughts:
Espionage thrillers aren’t really my genre (just think back to my review of The Thirty-Nine Steps), and it’s unfortunate on page 24 I found the 'n' word in the sentence "... ten little n*****s" because otherwise The Spy (short for The Spy Who Came in From the Cold) is in my top ten for 2011. I love the gripping story, the terrific characters, and I never felt at any stage I was being manipulated towards a particular outcome.

The book speaks tellingly of the struggle between democracy and communism, not in an elegant James Bond we're the best and winning side, but in a way that makes it clear that both sides are indistinguishable in methods. I’m no expert about this time period although the world I came of age in was a scant ten years later (the 1970s). I vividly remember the fear of communism (in the media and in the minds of my own parents) and the ‘them’ (the bad guys) and ‘us’ (the good guys). As a naïve teenager I refused to believe the simplicity of an argument that wrote off a portion of the world as monsters (‘them’). For me, the “enemy” breathed, loved, raised families, worked—exactly as we did—and a different economic system wasn’t enough to demonise people. Us and them clearly made 'we' in my world.

What I like about The Spy is how well it creates a ‘we’ that is the human race: good people and bad, working to achieve respective goals and, unfortunately when it comes to the the secret service, using identically unprincipled and nasty methods. It’s by no means an admirable world, but it's a world I've come to recognise as the 'real' world.

From the beginning the moral highground of the West is exposed to Leamas as political rhetoric only ("I mean, you've got to compare method with method, and ideal with ideal. I would say that since the war, our methods - ours and those of the opposition - have become much the same. I mean, you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's policy is benevolent ..." (p25) and it's clear the end justifies the means for the West. Neatly, by the end, the empty rhetoric and lies of the Communist regime are exposed and a cringingly stupid view of the West is espoused: "The English! The rich have eaten your future and your poor have given them the food." (p210) And sandwiched between these opposing views is an absorbing story: the tired ageing spy sent on one last mission before he comes in from the cold; an elaborate ploy to trap one of the opposition and get his own people to kill him. With great care Leamas dangles himself as bait, and the plan appears to be working. But there are two problems: Leamas falls in love with a Communist Liz, who starts off as part of his cover and unwittingly betrays him, and Control has embedded plots within plots that Leamas isn't aware of and may not be able to extricate himself from.

And it’s here I come full circle to my earlier thoughts about trust and cheating and one of the messages I think Le Carre is proposing:
• a population should be able to trust its government’s statement of ideals and not wonder whether behind the scenes it's pursuing any means to achieve its aims;
• the secret service should be trusted to conform to its government’s stated aims and not cheat not only the population but its own agents; and
• agents should be able to trust the service it works for.

I guess we're still a work in progress.

905. Quartet by Jean Rhys

Genre: Unknown
Rating: 3. Not bad
Read before: New read
Written: 1900s
Edition: Penguin 20th Century Classics 1973

Overview:
When Marya Zelli's husband, Stephan, a Polish art smuggler, is arrested, Marya is invited to move in with Heidler, a middle-aged and seemingly respectable art dealer, and his wife Lois. But life with the Heidler's is not to be refuge she expects; Heidler makes Marya his mistress with the connivance of his wife, and the three of them live, unhappily, together. On his release from prison, Stephan finds out about the affair and rejects Marya, as does Heidler who will not share Marya with another.

First chapter:
Quartet had a really strong first chapter that set the scene for the story really well:
• What does Miss de Solla start to say about the Heidler s and doesn't finish? (p10)
• What sort of person is a man who lays his hand on the knee of a woman he barely knows? (p13)
• What sort of relationship do the Heidlers have? (p13)

Thoughts:
One good thing about reading is how it holds up a mirror to your preconceived ideas and prejudices. One very definite prejudice I had reflected back to me is the contrast between my dislike of formulaic, happily ever after Hollywood movies and my laziness when it comes to understanding books. But I had to work with Quartet: I read the novel twice and floundered; I researched the plot so I could follow the sequence of events and that helped; and then I read a couple of reviews ... and only after reading and rereading the reviews could I get closer to understanding the constant thread of women’s submission to, and dependence on, men that runs throughout the story. And it's the level of dependence by women (both Marya and Iris), the damage it creates and their unwillingness or inability to take responsibility for themselves that really perplexes me.

When I first read the novel I thought Marya’s life with Stephan was a comfortable one. Stephan petted and loved her, and offered her what she wanted: "He told her that her arms were too thin, that she had a Slav type and a pretty silhouette, that if she were happy and petted she would become charming. Happy, petted, charming - these are magical words. And the man knew what he was talking aobut, Marya could see that." (p16) But I only understood later how the life she enjoyed through her passivity, recklessness and laziness were dangerous; she surrendered her right to understand her partner and play a role in her destiny with terrible results; being left destitute and without support when Stephan is imprisoned. Her gilded cage is, in reality, a mirage.

True to form, however, Marya turns to another man, Heidler, despite not loving or even liking him. And he's not the “prince” Stephan was: "[Stephan was]... a very gentle and expert lover. She was the petted, cherished child, the desired mistress, the worshipped, perfumed goddess. She was all these things toStephan - or so he made her believe. Marya hadn't known that a man could be as nice as all that to a woman - so gentle in little ways." (p20)

But put quite simply ... Heidler was a pig! They'd barely met when she found his "... huge hand lay possessively, heavy as lead, on her knee." (p13) And his seduction of Marya, if you could call it a seduction, is brutal; only a man sure of himself could tell the woman he wants to sleep with that his wife has "... gone away to leave us together ...", and that his wife knows (p56), and that he's making his move on her before someone else gets in first: "I've been watching you; I watched you tonight and now I know that somebody else will get you if I don't. You're that sort." (p57)

And it's not that Marya loves him or can't see what he's like. On more than one occasion Marya says Heidler is not handsome, a good lover or nice. She says to him: “You’re abominably rude and unkind and unfair. And you’re stupid in a lot of ways. Too stupid to realize how unfair you are.” (p72) She also knows that she should leave him but it’s clear as you read that that won’t happen: “I ought to clear out.’ But when she thought of an existence without Heidler her heart turned over in her side and she felt sick.” (p89). Sick because she fears losing him or sick because a life without the safety net of a man seems unthinkable? The answer seems obvious.

Marya’s acceptance of the Heidler’s offer to live with them makes her dependent on the husband and wife in a way she never was with Stephan; not only is she dependent on them for financial support but she becomes part of the struggle between them as Lois submits to Heidler ( Lois says: "I give him what he wants until his mood changes. I found out long ago that that was the only way to manage him." (p52)), but in return she seeks power over her husband in response to his humiliation of her with other women. I think it’s pretty clear that Lois reluctantly assists Heidler with his philandering and this eats at her: (she hids behind "... a drooping felt hat which entirely hid the upper part of her face" (p12), she looks out on the workd through suspicious almost deadened eyes (p12), and the repeated references to Marya that she must keep their living arrangements a secret (Heidler tells Marya that: "Of course, she'll [Lois] be furious if anybody knows." (p70)). But most damaging of all is her anger directed at Marya: she speaks badly of Marya when Heidler is absent but when he is present she is amiable towards her.

While women's inability to live their life without a man is understandable in a Psychology 101 sort of way (and I don't mean in a denigrating way because it happens all the time), what feels worse in the entire book is Marya’s inability to find a safe place away from the Heidlers. When the Heidler’s take Marya into their home she's imprisoned from the beinning: she's given: “a little room which smelt clean and cold. Striped gray and green curtains hung straightly over the long windows” (p44). But a bedroom should be a refuge, and it's clear that this will never be the case for Marya who cannot escape Heidler: “Your door is open because I come up every night and open it. Then I look at you and go away again”. (p57)

Bleak huh? I'm just glad it’s not my world.

1252. Fanny Hill by John Clelland

Genre: Erotica
Rating: 3. Not bad
Read before: New read
Written: 1700s
Edition:

Overview:
The book tells the story of an orphan who, without any other prospects, travels to London. She’s taken in by a brothel keeper who plans to sell her virginity, but she escapes and instead falls in love and becomes the mistresses of a young Lord. Now Fanny must make her way in life doing the only thing she knows how … prostitution.

First chapter:
I added questions for the first chapter (or letter) but I removed it because Fanny Hill is a memoir, not a "normal" novel in the sense that the first chapter represents a hook. Using that approach all the questions revolve around how Fanny being so naive ... when by the end of the first chapter Fanny's been seduced, kept as a mistress, abandoned, a mistress again and more. There just doesn't seem to be any point asking any questions.

Thoughts:
It’s interesting to ask who is the intended audience of Fanny Hill. I don't think it's the practised seducer or debaucher, who'd most likely find the repetitive nature of missionary sex tedious. It feels more like the novel’s intended for the “everyday” man and woman looking to spice up their lives … and most probably women. The prose is delicate; if I think about it it's actually poetic, graceful and respectful. And the plot is a Cinderella plot: boy meets girl and seduces girl, father separates boy and girl, girl must support herself (by prostitution but manages to enjoy herself while staying true to the boy in her heart), and finally boy returns to find girl, they marry and live happily ever after.

But it’s the parts of the story that fall outside the Cinderella plot that are most interesting to me (ie the idea of Fanny enjoying sex while staying true to her lover Charles) because they’re at odds with society’s views that sex without love is ‘tainted’, and to enjoy sex with many while loving another is to taint and debase that love. This doesn’t happen in Fanny Hill. John Clelland turns this idea upside down (which incidentally cling to life some 300 years later) and strikes an early blow for women’s rights. Go John!

Fanny, as a woman, owns her body and her heart and can do with either as she wishes. She has to support herself and I can’t blame a girl removed from scrubbing stairs and emptying chamber pots not wanting to return. So Fanny’s entrée into whoredom isn't a surprise—but her evident enjoyment of it is. Of course without this enjoyment the novel would have taken a much different, and darker, turn.

I also thought about whether Fanny Hill is pornography:
• a creative activity of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire; or
• any material that is sexually explicit; or even
• the depiction of erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement (Merriam-Webster).

According to some Fanny Hill is pornographic, with its erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement. But Fanny Hill is more: the full descriptions of sex in great detail are neither crude or offensive, the book offers an interesting insight into a part of life that's generally veiled from the everyday, and in providing Fanny with a voice, independence and the right to live her life, without condemnation, and to enjoy it.

I understand why the book was banned because of the copious and detailed descriptions of sexual encounters. But I also love the delicacy and sensitivity of the descriptions of these encounters where anatomy and sexual acts are never referred to clinically. That’s a definite talent and it’s added some beautiful purple prose to the English language. It’s this talent that leads me to add John Clelland to my list of the ten ten people I’d like to ask to a dinner party. I dare say he’d be able to tell an interesting and unconventional tale or two to liven up the conversation!

And this unconventional story (being Fanny Hill) led Clelland into trouble with the law. Fanny Hill was written during a stint in debtor’s prison and given the likely audience the novel must have easily made enough money to clear Clelland’s debts. But the novel took him out of the frying pan and into the fire as he was arrested and at the time said that he wished, “from my Soul”, that the book be “buried and forgot” (Sabor).

I’m glad it hasn’t been buried and forgotten, and I’m glad Fanny got her boy. We all deserve to be happy, no matter the path we travel to get there.

PS Another epistolary novel I like. This is starting to become a habit!

327. A Maggot by John Fowles

Genre: Mystery, Science Fiction, Historical, Postmodern
Rating: 4. Worth a read
Read before: New read
Decade: 1900s
Edition: Vintage 1986

Overview
A group of five (Bartholomew, Dick Thurlow, Fanny (Rebecca/Louise), Brown (Lacy) and Farthing (Jones)) travelling through rural England arrive at an inn in a small village. As the story progresses, it becomes apparent the travellers are playing roles in a drama, designed by Bartholomew, that they do not understand. The confusion increases as the reader learns that the point of the journey is not the real reason for the trek. Who are the players, and what is the real reason for the journey?

First chapter:
The first "chapter" is full of fantastic hooks, probably the best book I've read for this:
• What is Bartholomew's secret study? (p24)
• What is the reason behind the strange charade of Fanny making herself up and Dick unbuttoned and exposed? (p32)
• What is the "fixed destiny" Bartholomew thinks he must play? (p43)
• Why do Bartholomew and Dick burn Bartholomew's papers (p47)

Thoughts:
At the start of the year I was sure I didn’t like the epistolary form of writing (novels primarily written as a series of letter but which can also include newspaper articles, diary entries, etc). I can’t say that anymore, because since reading Dracula (Bram Stoker) and now A Maggot by John Fowles I now understand the format of a novel (including one written in the form of Q&As by a lawyer taking depositions) is nothing in the hands of a skilful story teller.

The pace of this novel is slow, but never boringly so … which fits well with its mysterious nature. The title is the first mystery. Fowles explains in the prologue that the title is taken from the archaic sense of the word that means "whim", "quirk", "obsession", or even a snatch of music. Another meaning of the word "maggot", which becomes apparent later in the novel, is used by Fanny to describe a white, oblong machine that appears to be a spaceship. (A spaceship in an 18th century historical novel--are you intrigued?)

The mystery is heightened by the third person narrator, who is not omniscient and clearly no wiser than we are: "One might have supposed the two leading riders and the humble apparent journeyman and wife chance-met, merely keeping together for safety . . ." (p2). But he soon notes: "Yet if they had been chance-met, the two gentlemen would surely have been exchanging some sort of conversation and riding abreast. . ." (pp2-3). And of the woman in the group, the narrator concludes that "She is evidently a servant, a maid" (p5)

Then there's the mystery (even cluelessness) of Henry Ayscough, the lawyer charged by Bartholomew’s father with discovering the details of his son’s disappearance. Part of Ayscough’s role is clearly to protect the status of the family, including its respect and good name. But Ayscough is also more:
• he acts as a pseudo reader and starts from scratch to uncover what's happened to Bartholomew;
• he identifies which information is relevant and acts as the point at which elements are confirmed; and
• he shows that, for the outsider, there is more to the mystery than meets the eye.

The character who intrigued me the most was Fanny. Who is she; the prostitute suggested by the men or is she the lady of Ayscough, Dorcas and the hotel keeper? For the men travelling together (Bartholomew, Lacy and Farthing) it seems clear they knew she was a prostitute, but if she's a prostitute why does no-one appear to be having a sexual relationship with her? The following gives an insight into the early mystery of Fanny:
• Fanny washes herself while Dick sits at her feet with an erection but they don't have sex. (pp29-34)
• Lacy tells Bartholomew that Jones saw Fanny going into a brothel. Lacy believes Jones is mistaken and Bartholomew assures him he is mistaken. Bartholomew infers Dick and Fanny are husband and wife. (p44)
• shortly afterwards Bartholomew chides Fanny about her wantoness, orders her to strip and then sends her away while he prays. (pp47-58)

So is Fanny actually a prostitute? If Dick and Fanny are married, why do they not have sex and why, soon after, is Fanny with Bartholomew, who asks her to strip, chides her and sends her away? If you think this is confusing to the reader, the people observing the group are unaware and further add more to the confusion:
• the innkeeper tells Ayscough that Fanny spoke kindly to Dorcas (p70), and that she might have been a lady in disguise. (p71)
• Dorcas confirms that Fanny is pleasant spoken, while the lawyer Ayscough tries to discover whether she was a lady masquerading as a maid. Dorcas believes she’s not a lady (pp85-86), and relates how Fanny was in Bartholomew’s room but did not stay the night. (pp86-87)

This mystery is resolved when Ayscough learns from a brothel keeper that Fanny's a notorious prostitute known as the Quaker Maid, who's able to pretend to be a virgin. (p140) but all this is smoke and mirrors because after 140 pages we understand the who of Fanny but no nearer to understanding the why?

And the entire book is like this ... I felt I understood the who of the journey, including the roles people played. I'm even happy with the various theories that were debunked, such as: the journey wasn't to allow Bartholomew to elope against the wishes of his family (as there was no woman waiting for him), he wasn't visiting a wealthy aged aunt to secure an inheritance (since she didn't exist), and Fanny's later claims re her impregnation make it unlikely Bartholomew was seeking a cure for impotence. (PS Why did Bartholonew feel the need to create such an elaborate ruse for the trip?)

What I'm left with, and it's much more fantastic than the debunked theories, are two theories: Fanny was destined for impregnation by an alien in order to start a new religious sect, and Bartholomew's interest in the occult took him to a certain location (reason unknown) and Fanny had a religious conversion.

The former theory is at odds with me given the historical nature of the book and my inability to meld science fiction with history, and the latter feels more comfortable to me. The idea that the why is associated with Bartholomew's interest in science or the occult doesn't seem too far fetched. He certainly had ideas about a fixed destiny (p5), he was secretive about his writings (p24) and the burning of the papers by Bartholomew and Dick, his mysterious relationship with Dick, his chastising of Fanny and directions to her that she should behave appropriately (pp52-57) seem to point towards something unusual at the very least.

If you think the answer is more than this or I'm totally on the wrong track ... I’d love to hear. I've never read a story that left me with so many questions.

991. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Genre: Tragic romance
Rating: 5. Top 10 contender
Read before: New read
Written: 1800s
Edition: Penguin Classics 2005

Overview:
Ethan Frome starts with the arrival of the narrator, whose name we never learn, who introduces us to the crippled Ethan Frome. The narrator is intrigued by Frome, but it’s not until Frome is hired by the narrator and he meets the people inside Frome’s home that his questions (and ours) are answered.

First chapter:
The questions that occurred to me as I was reading Chapter 1 are:
• What was the smash-up that led to Ethan’s physical state? (p2)
• Why won’t people talk about what happened? (p5)
• What more is there that contributes to Ethan’s "… look that more than poverty and ill health must contribute"? (p5)
• Who is the woman whose voice is heard "... droning querulously"? (p12)

Thoughts:
I loved this book and I think it’ll rank in the top ten of the books I read for 2011. There is so much in this book. It cuts through the idea that our possibilities are endless. Ultimately this isn't the truth: our opportunities and choices are limited to the landscape we inhabit, to the forces at work in our life and our own limitations. And Ethan Frome displays this so effectively through the three main characters: Ethan Frome, his wife Zenobia (Zeena) and his wife's cousin Mattie Silver.

The story isn't complicated or long. It’s only approximately 100 pages and a quick read that unfolds simply and gently. But don’t be misled by its simplicity. I thought I understood exactly where I was but it wasn't until I finished the story that I understood what a multi-layered story it was:
• the political and social landscape of the characters;
• Wharton's use of symbolism to add pathos and understanding;
• the emotions of the players: guilt, anger, fear, passion, jealousy and joy.

Layer 1: Social and political landscape
There’s so much about the landscape of the time but it’s more about creating the backdrop than actually exploring the landscape.

Of great important to the story is the impact of improved farming techniques and increased yields, and not because Frome’s life is better because of them but because he doesn’t have the money to invest in the improvements. Instead, he’s caught in a downward spiral of worsening poverty in a town many have left. The name of the town Sparkfield says it all.

Of great resonance to me is the back story of women’s opportunities during that time. Respectable women had few opportunities and these applied in Ethan Frome. Marriage was the ultimate career but there was no guarantee of success or happiness. And there was little else available that paid well or offer status: some had skill in nursing others but there was little paid work or status in nursing the sick, unwanted poor female relations could work for family for board and little more (which happened to Mattie), or they could take paid labour in a shop. Mattie worked in a shop before she arrived with the Frome’s so the thought of returning must have filled Mattie with horror.

Layer 2: Symbolism
There was also a lot of symbolism in the novel, including using symbolic names: I love the idea of Ethan's name means "strong, long lived" while Zenobia's name is rooted from Zeus, the Greek God-almighty, all willing, yet merciless. Mattie's name means "gift from God". It took me a while but was Mattie Zeena's gift to Ethan which she mercilessly withdrew?

My favourite symbolism is the references to red, and it’s easy and obvious to link red to harlotry (eg Hester in The Scarlett Woman by Nathaniel Hawthorne). But red is so much more: the red could be Mattie’s obvious energy and enthusiasm, and equally likely it could describe the colour and movement Mattie brings to Ethan’s life as he watches Mattie dance in her "... cherry-coloured scarf". (p15) Red's not only linked specifically to Mattie but is used in other ways: to describe Mattie and Ethan watching “… the cold red on sunset behind winter hills ...”. (p17) Is the cold red perhaps a reference to an untapped passion?

The cat, which appears at crucial times clearly symbolises Zeena, and in turn Ethan and Mattie’s awareness of her. The cat insinuates itself several times during Zeena's absence, with it critically breaking Zeena’s beloved pickle dish. Further symbolism can be extracted from the broken pickle dish as a metaphor for the final straw for Ethan and Zeena's marriage, with Ethan not having time to mend the dish before Zeena returns.

Layer 3: The character's
This is my favourite part of the story; how the guilt, anger, passion, jealousy and joy of the characters act and interact together to channel the story to its conclusion. One thing I should mention is that Wharton cleverly gives the reader access to Ethan’s thoughts as the story unfolds. But accepting Ethan's views of people and events is dangerous; Frome has his own strengths and weaknesses, and it's important to overlay these on to how he sees events or you run the risk of accepting everything Frome relates as the “truth”.

Ethan Frome
Who is Ethan Frome? An honest man, a conventional man, a man of pride and prudence. It's also important to remember he's a man who admired "recklessness and gaiety in others and was warmed to the marrow by friendly human intercourse". It seems clear from this why he married Zeena because she represented relief from being alone after Frome’s mother died, and why Mattie represented such a lifeline to him when Zeena clearly never met his needs.

Frome’s life was an emotional roller coaster: with love, passion and joy with Mattie and dread and fear from Zeena at the other. Frome’s love for Mattie is clear as his joy at being with her. She was the highlight of his day: he clearly liked her from the minute she arrived, she added human warmth to his day and fulfilled his need to explore the ideas he had and his enjoyment of the natural world. He even went so far to shave each day for her and do the housework Mattie didn’t do (but I’m not sure if Mattie didn’t do the work deliberately or because she wasn’t physically up to it?)

Frome’s love for Mattie was definitely overshadowed by his fear and dread of Zeena: fear that Zeena knew about his feelings for Mattie, fear of what she might say to him and fear Zeena would spend money he didn't have. Over and over again Ethan retreats into the happiness he derives from his dream life with Mattie and doesn’t stand up for himself: Zeena wants to see the new doctor and nothing is said, Zeena tells him Mattie must go the next day and no argument ensures, Zeena claims the new doctor says she must have paid help around the house and a paid servant is hired. The story is littered with these examples.

What’s interesting is that despite these Frome was a sympathetic character I liked. The worst he ever did was contemplate an adulterous affair and consider leaving Zeena for Mattie. His adulterous affair never went beyond a few embraces and kisses, and these only happened at the point Mattie looked likely to leave Frome’s life forever. Likewise, his thoughts of leaving Zeena came to nothing because he couldn’t bring himself to abandon her to her own fate while he went on to live happily ever after. And when you contrast what he intended to do with what Zeena actually did …

But this lack of action is my frustration with Frome. He might have been trapped in a conflict between passion and social convention but he was also basically passive. He desperately wanted to break free of Zeena and be with Mattie but what did he actually do to make this happen, whether by standing up to Zeena and insisting she stay or by leaving with Mattie?

It seems hardly surprising then that the passive, dreamer's only bold act is to attempt suicide—urged on him by Mattie and ultimately an act that contained little courage. Instead that mad sled ride to disaster is the ultimate expression of passivity. Unable to face the consequences of any decision, Mattie decides his fate.

Is the moral of this story that we are all responsible for our own happiness?

Zenobia (Zeena) Pierce Frome:
While the novel doesn’t have a “villain”, Zeena’s personality emerges so clearly that she feels like the villain. And it's not just Frome’s fear of her that leads us to dislike her: the physical descriptions of her, especially the comparisons with Mattie, make Zeena seem old and unfeminine. But this isn't entirely fair when Zeena's the victim of Ethan’s plans to commit adultery and to leave with Mattie. And, as I mentioned earlier, it was hard to see Zeena as the victim when I sympathised with Frome wanting to leave such an unhappy marriage.

But it’s not really fair to accept Frome's one dimensional vision of a manipulative and hypochondriac wife because Frome’s view of Zeena includes his prejudices and frustrations. Zeena must have her own reasons for why she did things, and these must surely include her early interest in moving to a bigger town (but not so large that she becomes insignificant), which clearly never eventuates. It also seems likely that she doesn’t retreat into ill health and her sly, manipulative way with Ethan because he ignores her until about a year after they’re marriage when it’s clear they’ll be on the farm forever. Dealing with a silent, passive husband can’t have been easy when both parties had made plans for a different life. But there was no separation and divorce for a mismatched 19th century couple, and it must have been difficult to be trapped as Zeena was.

None of this excuses Zeena’s reaction to Ethan's obvious love for Mattie, when it was her ill health that inadvertently created the circumstances that led to Mattie's arrival. Her sly, manipulative method of dealing with the situation by preying on both Ethan and Mattie’s fear of her can never show her in a good light. It's also hard to understand and condone her dismissal of Mattie to heaven only knows what fate.

Mattie Silver
We see Mattie, as we glimpse Zeena, mostly through Ethan’s eyes, and his perception of her is skewed by his passion. With her grace, beauty, and vitality, she obviously embodies everything that he feels Zeena has denied him, and she becomes the focus of his aborted rebellion against his unhappy life.

I think there are two events in the novel about Mattie that stand out: the first is her vivacity at the beginning of the story when Frome walks into town to pick her up. She’s joyful, she embraces life but she's impulsive (letting Dennis Eady think she'll ride with him and then telling him she won't (p22)) and boastful in her claims she's not afraid. However, it’s not until the end of the story that the seeds of her impulsiveness show her to be reckless as well through her convincing Frome that the way to be together is to suicide by sledding into a tree.

Even at the end of the novel I couldn't be sure whether the suicide Mattie's ways of being Frome or because she felt she had nowhere else to go. There were plenty of examples of her dread of Zeena and her fear of being turned away ... I'd like to think she loved Frome and her sobbing "I can't go ..." (p90) was a heartfelt plea at leaving Frome, and not despair at where her life was heading. But I guess I'll never really know.

981. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Genre: Espionage, Thriller
Rating: 2. Not much good
Read before: New read
Written: 1900s
Edition: Penguin 1991

Thoughts
I was all prepared to like The Thirty-Nine Steps; after all it’s formed the basis of several movie versions amongst them an Alfred Hitchcock.

If you’ve noticed my hesitation and think a ‘but’ is coming … you’re right. Where do you go in a novel when in the first chapter you get references to:
• Jews like “… ten to one you are brought up against a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake”. (p17)
• “… the most finished piece of blackguardism.” (p19)
• “I haven’t the privilege of your name, sir, but let me tell you that you’re a white man.” (p21)

But given it’s the same character who says each of this things, I might be able to imagine there’s some justice in the world because he was killed at the end of the first chapter.

I’ve heard and read about judging language, acts and ideas out of context by applying a filter of today’s expectations to them. But my position is that I won’t accept that people accept as right saying or thinking something about others they wouldn’t like said about themselves … and the Jewish comment falls firmly into that camp. This statement conjures up the traditional Fagin-like Jewish character which is totally out of order.

What each of these comments shows is the importance of language. Language helps to shape people’s attitudes on a conscious and subconscious level; just think of the negative connotations of the colour black with references like ‘black cloud’ and ‘black mood’ and contrast these with the positive nature of white eg the purity of a bride. Now none of us are simple enough to believe that the entire white male population is homogenous enough to be considered decent but the mere fact we collectively understand the intent of this statement proves the hijacking has occurred.

These references pushed me to look a little further into John Buchan’s background, and he had an interesting life: a career in literature and government including private secretary to the colonial administrator of various colonies in southern Africa and Governor General of Canada. Not much of a clue into his privately held beliefs although time spent in southern Africa at the turn of the century would have placed him at the heart of British imperial and colonial thought.

Apart from this the book was a light easy read, and I don’t think it’s criticism to say it was an obvious book. It’s too bad, really, because I was inclined to like a man so raring for action (and I’m thinking James Bond here).

666. The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Genre: Psychological thriller
Rating: 3
Read before: New read
Written: 1900s
Edition: First Vintage Crime/Black Lizard 1992

Overview:
Tom Ripley is financed by Herbert Greenleaf to encourage his absent son (Dickie) to return home because his mother is ill. Tom willingly accepts and finds himself living a life he loves. But it can't last and Tom becomes desperate when:
• he steps over Dickie's line and is asked to move on; and
• simultaneously loses the financing provided by Dickie's father.

How far will Tom go to continue living a life he enjoys? And will he get away with it?

The first chapter:
My questions for The Talented Mr Ripley my questions are:
• Why was Tom so worried about being arrested? (p3) And what's he involved in that leads him to talk about "... grand larceny or tampering with the mail ..."? (p4)
• Where was the slight error in "Charley could have told Mr Greenleaf that he [Tom] was intelligent, level-headed, scrupulously honest, and very willing to do a favour"? (p6)
• If Tom has a talent for mathematics, why isn't he doing something with it? (p8)
• How desperate is Mr Greenleaf that he'll offer a stranger an all expenses paid trip to Italy to bring his son home? (p9)

Thoughts:
These questions give us an insight into Tom, the deeply flawed anti-hero. The first chapter presents him as nervous and seeing people following him because of some illegal activity he’s engaged in. But he's also cool, calculating and manipulative, and quick to see the chance for a new life in Italy presented by Mr Greenleaf: "Tom's heart took a sudden leap. He put on an expression of reflection. It was a possibility. Something in him had smelt it out and leapt at it even before his brain." (p9) Later, despite terrible deeds and a deeper insight into Tom, it's still possible to feel pity for a man who doesn’t like himself: "He hated becoming Thomas Ripley again, hated being nobody, hated putting on his old set of habits again, and feeling that people looked down on him and were bored with him ... He hated going back to himself as he would have hated putting on a shabby suit of clothes, a grease-spotted, unpressed suit of clothes that had not been very good even with it was new." (p192)

Despite learning the depths to which Ripley can sink, it wasn't enough to overcome the flaws in the other characters to the extent that I could like them or feel sorry for them. Dickie Greenleaf was the worst; what good can be said about a selfish 25 year old with no interest in returning home despite knowing his mother has leukaemia. Dickie’s father Herbert I have some sympathy for: his gullibility and trust come from desperation to bring his son home and it doesn’t feel unexpected when he accepts his son’s not coming home. I also found Marge annoying. I don't know if it's because I’m a woman but her animosity against Dickie becomes a sort of pathetic gratitude and finally acceptance. To be honest, all I wanted to do with Marge is to give her a good shake!

I have to admit to reading a little more about the novel before I wrote this review, and learnt about two things I had no idea about as I read the book. One was modelling The Talented Mr Ripley on the Henry James novel “The Ambassadors”. Apparently, Highsmith doesn’t just "steal" the outline of James’s plot, she adds twists and turns that suggest I need to read The Ambassadors soon. Reading this I now understand why the two references to The Ambassadors are in the book: Mr. Greenleaf recommending that Tom read James’s book ("... but Mr Greenleaf was chuckling again, asking him if he had read a certain book by Henry James." (p24)), a copy of which Tom later contemplates stealing ("He put the book back docilely, though it would have been easy, so easy, to make a pass at the shelf and slip the book under his jacket." (p35)). At the time, I thought the references to The Ambassadors were odd but now I see how important they are.

The link to The Ambassadors is furthered by Highsmith’s symbolic use of the colour green, which she refers to from the first page. The references are obvious: the “greenback” (the dollar) and the "Green Cage"—the name of Tom’s barroom hangout (maybe a metaphor for wealth as a kind of entrapment?). This seems apt given it’s the scene for Tom’s acceptance of Herbert Greenleaf’s trip to Italy, and the real beginning of the story.

It also sets up Tom’s eventual imprisonment in another’s man identity. He will eventually assume the name and money of Dickie Greenleaf, whose name suggests a garden of cash. The most violent of the green metaphors (which I missed) is the likening of Dickie’s murder with the cutting down of a tree: ." ”Tom swung a left-handed blow with the oar against the side of Dickie’s head. The edge of the oar cut a dull gash that filled with a line of blood as Tom watched. Dickie was on the bottom of the boat, twisted, twisting. Dickie gave a groaning roar of protest that frightened Tom with its loudness and its strength. Tom hit him in the side of the neck, three times, chopping strokes with the edge of the oar, as if the oar were an axe and Dickie’s neck a tree.” The metaphor also suggests the gloriously demented image of Ripley as a lethal frontiersman chopping down the money tree and carving out his destiny.

I also read that Highsmith has been criticized for portraying the Tom Ripley as a repressed homosexual, and it’s been suggested it’s valid to surmise that Highsmith is spoofing the homosexual overtones that play throughout “The Ambassadors”. This angle also never occurred to me, but a re-reading of the book leads me to believe that, while Highsmith leaves various homosexual related ‘clues’ she’s uncommitted either way, and that the relationship about Dickie is more about obsession than anything else.

If you accept there is no sexual undertone to the relationship, then it’s Tom's obsession with Dickie that leads him to marginalise Marge in order to have Dickie to himself. Tom's hatred towards Marge is palpable, especially in that fateful scene which leads to the breakdown between Dickie and Tom; it's not only Tom wearing Dickie's clothes and mimicking Dickie mannerisms, but Dickie must have noticed that the scene is walked in on was of Tom assaulting Marge (pp78-79). The idea Tom's obsessed with Dickie, given Tom's animosity towards Marge but it only tells part of story because Tom's animosity extends to Marge's sexuality: "What disgusted him was the big bulge of her behind in the peasant skirt below Dickie's arm that circled her waist. And Dickie--! Tom really wouldn't have believed it possible of Dickie!" (p77) And it’s this obsession, in part, that allows Tom to blame Dickie for what went wrong: He hated Dickie, because, however he looked at what had happened, his failing had not been his own fault, not due to anything he had done, but due to Dickie’s inhuman stubbornness. And his blatant rudeness! He had offered Dickie friendship, companionship, and respect, everything he had to offer, and Dickie had replied with ingratitude and now hostility. Dickie was just shoving him out in the cold.” (p100)

But this quote might just as easily be a ‘homosexual’ clue, including earlier discussions related to sexuality, over pp80-81, that suggests that either (or both) Dickie and Tom are homosexual: for example, such as when Dickie's tone reminded Tom of Dickie's evasiveness when Tom "...had asked Dickie about [whether Dickie knew certain people Tom knew to be 'queer'] and he [Tom] had often suspected Dickie of deliberately denying knowing them when he did know them." So was Dickie homosexual and did he deny knowledge of other homosexuals through embarassment or fear of being found out? And is what Tom wouldn't have believed possible of Dickie the idea that Dickie was sexually attracted to a woman?

Most of the reviews I've read suggest it was Tom who was the repressed homosexual but I'm less comfortable with this idea. Tom always seems more interested in pathetically clinging to people or gaining advantage over them, that he's strangely asexual. If Dickie is homosexual (or even bisexual) and hiding it, this seems to present no problems to Tom other than to surprise him. There are also other references to Tom interacting with homosexuals, and again Tom seems to present a pathetic clinging figure: "When a couple of them [homosexuals] had made a pass at him, he had rejected them - thought he remembered how he had tried to make it up to them later by getting ice for their drinks, dropping them off in taxis ..."? (p81)

During the last few chapters I wondered how the story would turn out because I knew this was no moral tale where the anti-hero would be punished for daring to presume. But there were so many times when I felt he would: Highsmith played with us so skilfully when Tom met the police as Dickie and Iwondered whether the police would twig they were one and the same (p202), and I kept waiting for the police to turn up and take Tom’s fingerprints and the whole game would be up (p287). And this is where Highsmith’s style is so complex … all of this was heightened by the third person narrative who drew us into Ripley's tension: "The police might be looking for him in Rome. The police would certainly look for Tom Ripley around Dickie Greenleaf. It was an added danger - if they were, for instance, to think that he was Tom Ripley now, just from Marge's description of him, and strip him and search him and find both his and Dickie's passports." (p179) Looking back this constant teasing was an effective technique to increase the tension.

Perhaps because of this and/or because the people Tom dealt with were outwitted so skilfully by him eg why did Marge not like Tom when he was trying to come between her ("Tom knew what Marge would say: 'Why don't you get rid of him, Dickie?" (p92)), but she seemed to have no doubts about him once Dickie disappeared despite Tom stumbling twice (eg getting him and Dickie's names mixed up and Marge finding Tom's rings?). And how dumb was one of the police who saw Tom as both Tom and Dickie and didn’t twig (although seeing him in different cities might have something to do with it). But the police also didn't seem to pursue leads such as who was the person being helped out of “Dickie’s” apartment which coincided nicely with Freddie's death. But I guess much the reader knows so much more of the story because we see it through Tom's eyes, and another characters aren't privy to the same information.

And the last thing I have to mention is how neatly the story is sandwiched between Tom's believing he's being followed (paranoia or conscience?) and how his reaction changes over time. On the first page (p1) he's looking over shoulder worried about being caught and trying to work out how to get away. But he's more self assured, more poised by the last page despite a continuing belief in people following him: "He saw four motionless figures standing on the imaginary pier, the figures of Cretan policemen wating for him ... He grew suddenly tense, and his vision vanished. Was he going to see policemen waiting for him on every pier that he approached? ... Even if there were policement on the pier, it woulnd't necessarily mean--." (p290) What does this say about Tom's future?